Ron Bennett Mortgage Consultant/MLO #57792

Ron Bennett Mortgage Consultant/MLO #57792 Loan Officer NMLS #57792 SecurityNational Mortgage Company #3116 Equal Housing Opportunity See ABOUT Tab Army Reserves. Certified by the U.S.
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Ron Bennett Loan Officer NMLS # 57792 at Absolute Mortgage a Division of American Pacific Mortgage #1850 Branch # 1493372
Equal Housing Opportunity Licensed by the Dept of Financial Protection and Innovation under the CRMLA Licensed in CA, WA
Ron started his career in 1975 with General Motors Acceptance Corporation doing everything from Credit Representative, Customer Relations Supervisor, Dealer

Relations Supervisor, Sales Supervisor, Branch Leasing Coordinator, and Sales Manager. In 1991, Ron ventured into the mortgage industry, first specializing in residental loans...then working on commercial loans alike. Ron brings a wealth of knowledge and experience from his extensive financial, marketing, and investment real estate background. Currently, Ron is licensed by the State of Washington, Department of Financial Instutions for mortgage loans as well as an Instructor for Continuing Education for Real Estate Consultants. Among his peers, Ron is known for his creative and caring approach that allows his clients to refinance or purchase their dream home, along with finding funds to live their dream lives. Recently, after 35 years of service to his country, Ron retired from the U.S. Ron was born and raised in Sacramento, California, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Business Administration from Seattle University. Specialties: Certified by the State of Washington to instruct continuing education through Professional Directions Real Estate School. Armed Forces to Instruct Human Resource Courses. Neighborhood Lending Certification from Bank of America...

Certified Military Housing Specialist through The USA CARES Military Housing Education Program....

09/04/2026

Daily Market Wrap - 9/4/2026

Friday…

Stocks have ended the day lower. The Dow is -271.86 at 53414.25 and the S&P 500 is -29.11 at 7718.60. Mortgage Bonds are lower on the day.

BLS Jobs Report

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its August Jobs Report, showing 162,000 jobs were created, well above estimates of 58,000.Adding to the strong report were positive revisions to the previous two months, totaling 55,000. Notably, July was revised from -23,000 to+21,000, accounting for most of the revision.

While today’s BLS Report was strong across the board, it does not jive with other labor market reports from ADP and Revelio. BLS includesgovernment, so in order to compare apples to apples, we have to look at the BLS private payroll figure, which was +127,000.

That compares with +38,000 in ADP and +37,000 in Revelio - clearly some big disparities.

Additionally, the BLS said there were 74,000 jobs created from the birth/death model, which tries to capture small business job growth. Thatcompares with zero job growth in small businesses in ADP.

Looking at the sector breakdown, the BLS said that Leisure/Hospitality added 62,000 jobs, which was a big bounce back. That compares with16,000 in ADP and -20,000 in Revelio.

Government added 35,000 jobs, while Private Education/Health Services added 29,000.

The Household Survey showed that the unemployment rate remained at 4.1%. Within this report there is a different job creation component, which showed 569,000 jobs added last month. At the same time, the labor force increased by 683,000. In this case, the unemployment rateremained at 4.1% for the right reasons, not due to an exodus from the labor force.

Adding to the strength was 735,000 full time jobs and a drop of 223,000 part time jobs.

Bottom line: This was a strong jobs report on all fronts. The one caveat is that it does not sync up with other labor market reports and the BLSreport is extremely volatile and susceptible to big revisions, especially for August.

As far as the impact on a September 16 rate hike: The Fed Futures are pricing in a greater chance of a hike, 60% today vs 50% yesterday, butwe are not so sure this report will have an impact.

First off, the Fed already thought the labor market was solid, and because of the volatility ofthis report, they will likely not put too much credence on one report. Additionally, they are much more focused on inflation, so it will really comedown to next week’s CPI report.

News Next Week

Monday: Markets closed in observation of Labor Day

Tuesday: ADP Weekly

Wednesday: Mortgage Apps, 10-year Auction

Thursday: Producer Price Index, Existing Home Sales, Jobless Claims

Friday: Consumer Price Index

Technical Analysis

Mortgage Bonds are currently battling support at 101.02, which is holding for now. If this level is broken the next stop is down at 100.88.

The 10-year is in the middle of the range between an important ceiling at 4.81% and support at 4.74%.

Closing position: Floating

09/03/2026

Daily Market Wrap - 9/3/2026

Thursday…

Stocks have ended the day higher. The Dow is +624.16 at 53686.11 and the S&P 500 is +81.11 at 7747.71. Mortgage Bonds are higher on the day.

Fed Governor Christopher Waller

Fed Governor and voting member, Christopher Waller, spoke this morning and gave his thoughts on inflation and what he is looking at in determining whether to hike or pause on September 16.

He explained that he still sees upside risks to inflation; that energy, tariffs, and wages are not sources of ongoing inflation pressure; and that there has been no significant increase to long-term inflation expectations.

Waller believes that underlying inflation is doing better than the core numbers suggest and that recent data indicates that we are finally seeing some signs of disinflation.

He is willing to hold rates steady at the September 16 meeting if progress on inflation continues, but if inflation comes in hot, he will consider a 25bp rate hike. Estimates for next week’s CPI report call for core inflation to fall from 2.5% to 2.4%. If that comes to fruition, the Fed very well may be on pause.

Waller feels the labor market is in satisfactory shape, pointing to the low unemployment rate. But we continue to see a weak level of jobs being created, evidenced further by this morning’s Revelio Jobs Report.

The Bond market began to rally following what is being perceived as dovish comments from Waller.

Jobless Claims

Initial jobless claims, which measure individuals filing for unemployment benefits for the first time, rose 2,000 to 206,000.

The level of firings remains remarkable stable and at a very low level for quite some time.

Continuing claims, or those who continue to stay on benefits after their initial claim, rose 8,000 to 1.8M.

Jobs Report Strategy

Revelio released their private labor market report this morning, measuring job growth in August. They reported that there were only 37,000 jobs created, which is a low level of job creation.

The breakdown of where the jobs came from adds to the weakness: 27,000 jobs came from Public Administration, which is mostly Government jobs, while 22,000 were attributed to Health Care/Social Assistance, which is where the majority of the jobs have been coming from. Both of these sectors are not economically sensitive. Leisure and Hospitality, which does respond to economic activity and strength/weakness, shed 20,000 jobs and has been on a trend of losses.

The ADP report yesterday showed 38,000 jobs created in August, which was a miss and beneath estimates of 53,000.

This brings us to tomorrow’s BLS Jobs Report, which is always very difficult to handicap. Based on other measures of the labor market,
everything is pointing to a weaker figure.

The market is expecting 58,000 jobs to have been created in August and for the unemployment rate to remain at 4.1%. We believe the odds favor a weaker than expected report, with further potential downside revisions to the previous two months.

Technical Analysis

Mortgage Bonds broke above the celling at 101.02 but were rejected from the next resistance level at 101.18.

The 10-year tested support at 4.74%, which held and pushed yields back to the middle of their range between the aforementioned floor and a ceiling at 4.809%.

Closing position: Floating

09/02/2026

Daily Market Wrap - 9/1/2026

Tuesday…

Stocks have ended the day lower. The Dow is -419.02 at 52766.88 and the S&P 500 is -54.67 at 7631.47. Mortgage Bonds are lower on the day.

JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover)

Job openings in July rose 89,000 to 7.27 million, but that follows a sizable downward revision of 177,000 for the previous month. Today’s figurealso came in below expectations, missing the 7.3 million estimate.

Even though it was weaker, a lot of this was still an illusion. We covered a report recently where they have found that 1 in 5 job openings wasnot real, either posted to make the company look stronger or hoping to find an all-star candidate, but not a real position.

Additionally, job openings are counted at the state level. And with work from anywhere, the same job can be counted multiple times if it’s listedin different states.

Professional and Business Services openings fell 65,000, while Leisure and Hospitality fell 42,000 after shedding 91,000 in the previous month. Healthcare added 54,000 after losing 110,000 in the previous month. This has been the area where almost all of the job creations have beencoming from.

The internals were weaker as well. The Hiring Rate was reported at 3.2%, down from 3.4% and one tenth away from the lowest level going backto 2011 when removing Covid.

The Quits rate fell to 1.9%, which is tied for the lowest level since 2014 when removing Covid. This shows that employees are not voluntarily quitting as much because there is much less poaching from other companies due to less hiring.

Tomorrow’s ADP report will be important ahead of Friday’s BLS Jobs Report. The market is expecting only 48,000 jobs to have been created inAugust, which syncs up very closely with their weekly data that has been softening consistently.

Technical Analysis

Mortgage Bonds have broken beneath support at 101.02 and 100.95, which is a bad sign. If this result holds there is a lot of room to the downside before the next floor of support.

The 10-year moved higher today and closed just below the ceiling at 4.81%.

Closing position: Floating

08/31/2026

Daily Market Wrap - 8/31/2026

Monday…

Stocks have ended the day lower. The Dow is -374.09 at 53185.90 and the S&P 500 is -25.62 at 7686.14. Mortgage Bonds are lower on the day.

Fannie Mae Home Price Expectations Survey

Fannie Mae released their Home Price Expectations Survey, where they survey the top 150 housing market economists and get their forecastson nationwide home values over the next 5 years.

The median forecast for 2026 is 2.6%, which is close to our initial forecast of 3% at the beginning of the year. The impact on a $500,000 homewould be a $13,000 appreciation gain, which is significant.

Over the next five years, the median forecast is 15%. That would result in a $75,000 gain on a $500,000 home, which is meaningful for wealthcreation. Make sure to explain this opportunity to your customers and get them focused on the financial opportunity, not just rate.

Real estate is localized, so make sure to use our Real Estate Report Card and Appreciation Calculator to get the forecasts in your local markets.

Interestingly, Chen Zhao from Redfin, who wrote the viral article about 500,000 more sellers than buyers, has dramatically changed herforecasts within this survey. It does not appear that she believes there are indeed that many more sellers than buyers, because there would beno way she could then forecast 3.5% appreciation this year and 3% each of the next four years. Cumulatively over the next 5 years, she isexpecting 16.5% appreciation. If there was indeed that many more sellers than buyers, home values would likely decline, not appreciate at sucha meaningful pace.

Jobs Preview

This week’s jobs data will be highly watched, as the jobs data and CPI report will be the two key factors to determine if the Fed hikes on September 16.

Here are the estimates for this week:

JOLTS: -59,000 to 7.3M

ADP: 47,000

BLS: 58,000, UR unchanged at 4.1%

News This Week

Tuesday: JOLTS

Wednesday: ADP Employment Report, Mortgage Apps

Thursday: Jobless Claims

Friday: BLS Jobs Report

Technical Analysis

Mortgage Bonds tested support at 101.02 but were rejected higher.

They continue to trade in the range between the aforementioned floor ofsupport and the ceiling at 101.18.

The 10-year has broken above the important ceiling at 4.747%, which is a bad sign. There is more room to the downside before reaching thenext ceiling at 4.809%.

Closing position: Locking

That setback? It's setting you up.That closed door? Better one's opening.That 'no'? Just means not yet.Keep moving forwa...
08/28/2026

That setback? It's setting you up.

That closed door? Better one's opening.

That 'no'? Just means not yet.

Keep moving forward. Period.

Every day is a new opportunity — today included.You don't need a new year to start fresh.Just a new sunrise.Show up bett...
08/26/2026

Every day is a new opportunity — today included.

You don't need a new year to start fresh.

Just a new sunrise.

Show up better than yesterday. That's it. That's the whole plan.

Go get it. 🔥

08/25/2026

Daily Market Wrap - 8/25/2026

Tuesday…

Stocks have ended the day higher. The Dow is +160.24 at 53577.40 and the S&P 500 is +24.42 at 7677.28. Mortgage Bonds are higher on theday.

New Home Sales

New Home Sales, which measure signed contracts on new homes, fell 10.5% in July to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 607,000, whichwas weaker than estimates of 620,000. During July, rates were elevated and continued to rise, causing less activity.

Additionally, the Junereport was revised higher by 50,000, which makes today’s miss look worse. From the originally reported June report, sales are still down, butby just 3.3%. Sales are down 6.3% year over year.

This is a volatile figure so it’s worth looking at some historical numbers over the past year:

3-month average: 638,000

6-month average: 641,000

12-month average: 664,000

Over the past six months, sales have been pretty stable on average, but they are clearly lower than they were beyond that.

The median sales price of new houses sold was $393,800, which is down 2.3% from the previous month and almost 1% below this time lastyear. But as we will go over below, home values are rising, and this is a measure of the middle-priced home that sold. And in July, one third ofthe homes sold were between $300K and $400K, brining down the median price.

Appreciation Data

Case-Shiller and the FHFA released their appreciation reports this morning for June. Case-Shiller showed that home values rose 0.4% on anunadjusted basis, with home values nationwide up 2.7% over the past four months. But because those gains were expected due to seasonality,after seasonal adjustments, the reading falls to +0.1%…but homes did actually rise in value. Year over year, home values rose from 1.2% to 1.5%.

FHFA, which only measures home values with conforming loan limits and excludes cash transactions, showed that home prices were flat afterseasonal adjustments and are up 2.3% year over year.

ADP Weekly Employment Data

The trend of softer labor market data continues. ADP reported that on average, there were 11,750 jobs created per week over the previous fourweeks. While this is a slight increase from the previous week, which showed a 9,500 job average, today’s report puts the job pace at roughly50,000 jobs for the month, which is weak.

Technical Analysis

Mortgage Bonds opened above their 25-day Moving Average and are trading just a few basis points below the next ceiling at their 50-dayMoving Average.

The 10-year has broken beneath its 25-day and has a little more room to improve before reaching a dual floor comprised of the 4.588% Fibonacci Level and the 50-day.

Closing position: Floating

08/21/2026

Daily Market Wrap - 8/21/2026

Friday…

Stocks have ended the day higher. The Dow is +517.80 at 53227.01 and the S&P 500 is +33.21 at 7674.37. Mortgage Bonds are lower on the day.

ICE Home Price Index

Mortgage rates have been on the rise and remain the focal point for most potential buyers. And while they are always important, it can be veryeffective to focus on the opportunity of tomorrow, especially given the resilient levels of appreciation we are seeing across most of the country.

ICE released their home price index for August, showing that home values nationwide on average rose by 0.21%. Year over year, they increasedby 1.71%, which is the highest annual growth rate in 14 months.

Looking at the past six months of data and annualizing, ICE’s appreciation rates are on track for about 3% appreciation, which is right in linewith our forecast. It’s also important to note that ICE seasonally adjusts their numbers, which means that it takes into account the seasonalstrength seen in the spring months and adjusts for that.

Make sure you utilize the appreciation calculator within MBS Highway to illustrate the opportunity in home ownership in your local markets. Thetool can pull in historical and forecasted appreciation, as well as custom rates that you choose.

Using a 3% rate of appreciation on a $500,000 home, a homeowner would gain $15,000 in the first year, $80,000 over 5 years, and $171,000over 10 years. While 3% appreciation does not sound like that much, it is still very meaningful for wealth creation over time.

Walmart Q2 Earnings

Walmart released their Q2 earnings report, showing more signs of consumer stress. Walmart is the largest grocer and retailer in the country, soit gives some good signals and reads on the consumer.

Sales, when removing fuel, rose by 2.6%...but that was beneath expectations and the slowest growth in 6 years. Additionally, consumers stillmade a similar amount of transactions, but their spend per transaction fell by more than half. Walmart said that the consumer is trading downand that there were more higher income shoppers that are likely trying to save money.

Walmart is getting a tariff refund that is significant, but they are using the money to reduce prices, showing that they cannot pass along priceincreases to consumers because they are struggling.

Bottom line – There have been several reports lately showing that the consumer is under duress. While many think the Fed should hike, and theBond market would likely react favorably, it may not be the right thing for the economy. Recent inflation reports have been tame and the jobsdata has been weakening. And if the Fed were to hike, it would not impact oil prices, but it would cause consumers to spend more on creditcards, car loans, and anything else variable. It would exacerbate the situation consumers are already facing, and has the potential to be acatalyst for a recession.
This brings us to next week’s Jackson Hole meeting, where Kevin Warsh will be speaking next Friday. Historically, this has been an importantmeeting used to signal policy change. If the Fed were planning on hiking, this would be a spot for Warsh to signal to the markets that it’scoming. We know, however, that Warsh does not believe in being as transparent as the Fed has been in the past and he does not want to giveforward guidance. It will be interesting to see what he says and it will be a very important meeting that the markets will be focused on.

News Next Week

Tuesday: ADP Weekly Employment Data, Case-Shiller & FHFA Appreciation Reports, New Home Sales

Wednesday: Mortgage Applications, Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) inflation data, Q2 GDP (second reading), Durable Goods Orders

Thursday: Jobless Claims

Friday: QCEW jobs revisions, Warsh speech at Jackson Hole Symposium

Technical Analysis

Mortgage Bonds tested support at 101.18, which held and pushed MBS off their lows of the day. They're currently trading in the lower bound oftheir range between the aforementioned floor and a ceiling at the 101.39 Fibonacci Level.

The 10-year has broken above the ceiling at 4.714% and stopped just shy of the next ceiling at 4.75%.

Closing position: Carefully Floating

08/17/2026

Daily Market Wrap - 8/17/2026

Monday…

Stocks have ended the day lower. The Dow is -272.63 at 53459.78 and the S&P 500 is -40.70 at 7745.06. Mortgage Bonds are lower on the day.

Today marks the official expiration of the 60-day ceasefire between the US and Iran, although there have been escalations and strikes for muchof the second half of the period. Despite the disruptions, WTI oil is at $83/barrel - higher than we’d like, but better than many would have expected.

Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, provided an update on oil flows out of the Strait of Hormuz. Before the war, there were 20 million barrelsflowing through the Strait each day. That has slowed to 9 million, but flow has been made up with pipelines through the Red Sea. The estimatedshortfall is about 5.5 million barrels per day, which is still significant but much less than some reports suggesting a much larger decline intraffic through the Strait. Those reports may not be capturing the true volume, as some ships are traveling without transponders and under the radar.

Even still, because of increased costs like insurance, it’s still costing more to transport the oil we are getting through.

And 5.5 million barrels is still a massive amount. Just picture a single barrel of oil, then 1 million of them - and then 5 million.

That’s how much oil we’re short every single day. One thing that’s helping is softer global demand for oil, especially from China.

Unfortunately, there has been no progress and no end in sight with Iran, so we must be on guard for oil prices to continue to trend higher unless something changes.

News This Week

Tuesday: ADP Weekly, Housing Starts and Permits, Pending Home Sales

Wednesday: Mortgage Apps, 20-year Auction, Fed Minutes

Thursday: Jobless Claims

Technical Analysis

Mortgage Bonds have experienced a technical breakdown, falling beneath the important floor of support at their 101.39 Fibonacci Level.

The 10-year has broken above its ceiling at 4.714% and has more room to increase before reaching the next resistance level at 4.799%.

Closing position: Locking

08/11/2026

Daily Market Wrap - 8/11/2026

Tuesday…

Stocks have ended the day lower. The Dow is -184.13 at 53791.85 and the S&P 500 is -24.91 at 7728.20. Mortgage Bonds are higher on the day.

Existing Home Sales

Existing Home Sales were released this morning, showing that closings on existing homes in July fell 1.7% to an annualized pace of 4.06M units, which was slightly better than estimates looking for 4.05M units. The decline looks worse than reality, as the June report was revised higher from 4.09M to 4.13M…from the originally reported figure, sales were flat month to month. On a year-over-year basis, sales are still up 0.7%, but they are up 2.4% year to date. Sales in the Northeast rose, held steady in the West, and declined in the Midwest and South.

Home sales are much lower than we would like, but they have been reamarkably stable around this level, despite rising mortgage rates.

This does show some underlying strength, and if rates were lower, sales activity would likely be much higher.

Inventory fell almost 2% last month to 1.54M units and is down 0.6% year over year. Inventory remains tight, which is supportive of home values.

The median home price fell 2% in July to $434,100 but is still up 2% year over year. Remember, median home price measures the middle-priced home that sold during the month, not appreciation, so the mix of homes that sold has a big influence and there were more lower priced homes that sold last month, which dragged the median price down.

Looking at the internals – Homes remained on the market for an average of 29 days, which is pretty stable and close to 28 days last month and this time last year. 19% of homes sold above list, down from 21% last year. First-time homebuyers, which were showing a lot of strength the last two months at 35% and 33% respectively, fell to 29%. Cash buyers made up 26% of transactions, which is down from 31% last year, while investors made up 14% of sales, down from 20% last year.

ICE Home Price Appreciation Data

ICE reported that home values, on average across the US, rose 0.2% in July after seasonal adjustments, which means they are accounting for typical seasonal strength seen at this time of year.

Year over year, home values are up 1.5%, marking the fifth straight month of acceleration and the strongest annual growth in 14 months.

Year-to-date, home values have risen by roughly 1.5%, and if you were to annualize the first seven months of the year, we are on pace for 2.5% appreciation, which is still meaningful. A customer buying a $500,000 home would gain $12,500 – Make sure to illustrate the financial opportunity to your borrowers and utilize the tools in MBS Highway (Real Estate Report Card, Appreciation Calculator) to quantify it in your local zip codes.

Thanks to the magical elixir of appreciation, mortgage holder equity reached a record $18 trillion in Q2, the highest level ever recorded.

MBS Highway Housing IndexIn August, the MBS Highway National Housing Index dropped for the third month in row, shedding 5 points to 27. While that index level is consistent with weakening demand and flattish prices, it’s actually 3 points above its level from a year ago. As a reminder, a reading of 50 separates contraction (below 50) from expansion (above 50).

Both our Buyer Activity and Price Direction sub-indexes lost 5-6 points to arrive at 27. While it’s normal for our index to peak around April-May, there is little doubt that the US/Iran conflict — which has boosted oil prices, inflation and (by extension) mortgage rates — has crimped demand at a time when inventory levels are generally rising. That explains why, at the national level, home prices are basically flat.

ADP Weekly

ADP released their weekly employment data, showing that on average there were 8,000 jobs created per week over the past four weeks. Based on this morning’s reading, it would forecast roughly 35,000 jobs over a full-month period. This report has been consistently weakening over the past two months and points to a labor market that is softening, not strengthening.

Technical Analysis

Mortgage Bonds are trading in the middle of a wide range between support at 101.08 and resistance at 101.39.

The 10-year has tested and held once again at the 4.71% ceiling, which has prevented yields a bit lower toward support at its 25-day Moving Average.

All eyes will be on tomorrow’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation report. The market is expecting the core reading to be tame at 0.2% and for the year over year figure to decline from 2.6% to 2.5%. Of course, shelter will play a big role, as it makes up roughly 45% of the core index. The last shelter reading was very tame at 0.1%. If we see another cool inflation report tomorrow, it will likely be Bond-friendly and can help Bonds and yields make some progress within their ranges and potentially test some key levels.

Closing position: Floating

Address

402 S Main Street Suite 140
Auburn, WA
98002

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 6pm
Tuesday 9am - 6pm
Wednesday 9am - 6pm
Thursday 9am - 6pm
Friday 9am - 6pm

Telephone

+12535619704

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